There’s a famous quote in the video game industry, often misattributed to Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, that goes something like this: “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.” The idea is that if you delay the release of a video game, you will—in theory—have more time to make it good, but if a game isn’t good and you release it quickly anyway, it’s obviously not going to get any better.
Well, animation company Illumination seems to have taken that to heart, as it has delayed the release of its Super Mario Bros. movie by a few months. Instead of December 21 of this year, it will now be released in the United States on April 7, 2023. That news supposedly comes from Miyamoto himself, with the Nintendo Of America Twitter account posting a message “from him” that makes it sound like this is just something that him and Illumination boss Chris Meledandri (we assume he’s “Chris-san” and not Chris Pratt) came up with rather than something motivated by an issue with the film or a crowded schedule or any of the other reasons that studios have for delaying things.
Speaking of Meledandri, you’ll remember him as the guy who, back in November, defended the decision to hire Chris Pratt of all people to play Super Mario, saying that the voice Pratt is doing is “phenomenal” and that it won’t have much of the “it’s-a me, Mario” stuff that people generally associate with the character. (God forbid.)
Again, in case you blocked it from your mind: CHRIS PRATT IS PLAYING MARIO. Charlie Day is playing Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy is playing Princess Peach, Jack Black is playing Bowser, Seth Rogen is playing Donkey Kong, Fred Armisen is playing Cranky Kong, and Keegan-Michael Key is playing Toad. All of those are real. We didn’t do the thing we sometimes do where we slip in a joke to see if you’re paying attention, because what joke would be sillier than “Fred Armisen is playing Cranky Kong”?
That being said, Super Mario Bros. is being directed by the great Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, creators of Teen Titans Go!, so we regret to inform the haters that this movie might actually be really good. Sorry.